Last year I saw a car with the vanity plate MAXIMA. It was on a Nissan Maxima.
Yesterday I saw a car with the vanity plate NAVGTR. It was on a Lincoln Navigator.
How could this be? Did they get the vanity plates before they actually bought the cars, in the hope that one day they would be able to afford that model? If this was the case, wouldn't they have abandoned the vanity plate (and saved the yearly upgrade fee) when they got the car itself?
Could NAVIGTR mean that this car belongs to a pilot, and he just happens to also have bought a car with the same name? Maybe MAXIMA is the driver's nickname (male stripper)? I tried to pull up to the cars to see who was driving; no luck, they pulled away and then turned down a different street. A mystery.
Now, I once looked into getting a vanity plate for my Volkswagen (BTLHEAD), but all the good names were already "taken" in that state so I gave up and took the normal plate. Perhaps this is where MAXIMA and NAVIGTR went wrong---they had some good ideas, but those plates were already in use so they just thought "Ah the hell with it--just put the name of the car on there." I imagine the clerk at the License Plate Bureau processing the application and passing it around to the other goverment cubicle-dwellers: "Look! Here's a moron who's paying $50 to put MAXIMA on his Maxima!"
After CAMRY and ACCORD and ROVER all get their vanity plates, unimaginative drivers will really be at a loss. Is there a vanity plate in the near future with just CAR or TRUCK on it? Will we see VHICLE or MINIVN? Hopefully the high-end drivers won't feel the need to rub it in by getting a LOTUS or VETTE plate on their luxury rides.
Personally, I will stick with the generic letter-and-number combo assigned to me by the fair state of Texas. Less memorable for other drivers (and law enforcement).